This research has revealed the key characteristics needed in a modern public service, with priorities ranging across leadership, digital service delivery, workforce development, cross-departmental integration, and citizen trust. The report found that relationships between civil servants and ministers are becoming increasingly strained, with populist politics often making it difficult to speak truth to power.

Fifty years after the publication of Jane Jacobs’s landmark book, we’re still trying to find our way around the city, writes Richard Johnstone in Inside Story.

Is the energy, liveliness and to-the-pointness of text-messaging already history?